


occam, bring out the saw

by armethaumaturgy



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Character Development, Character Study, Dust (Dusttale) - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Phantom Papyrus (Dusttale) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29618355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armethaumaturgy/pseuds/armethaumaturgy
Summary: ‘Did you think you could get rid of them that easily?’Papyrus asked him. Dust locked eyes with him through the mirror. As unreadable as his brother’s expression had been before, it had morphed into a clear smile now. It almost looked pitying, and Dust couldn’t stand to see it for too long.‘Your sins,’he clarified, as if Dust didn’t know.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	occam, bring out the saw

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from ferry's song ['occam's razor'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-4AQqjxj7g&t=2s&ab_channel=Ferry)

Dust stared at his reflection in the mirror. Papyrus was right behind him, expression unreadable as Dust’s morphed into a frown.

The water running in the sink was loud, but only barely enough to overpower the white noise of monster voices calling his name as their silhouettes flicked in and out of existence in his peripheral, always gone when he turned to see who it was. Dust eventually resigned himself to the fact they’d plague him today.

He wrung his phalanges together, suds from the soap washing down with the cold stream. But no matter how much he scrubbed, the ashen gray of dust clung to them, refusing to wash away. He reached up and rubbed at his sockets, idly thinking they were simply playing tricks on him.

But all he succeeded at was spreading the dust all over his skull, the powdery substance invading his nasal cavity with each of his stuttered breaths.

_ ‘Did you think you could get rid of them that easily?’  _ Papyrus asked him. Dust locked eyes with him through the mirror. As unreadable as his brother’s expression had been before, it had morphed into a clear smile now. It almost looked pitying, and Dust couldn’t stand to see it for too long.  _ ‘Your sins,’ _ he clarified, as if Dust didn’t know.

He shoved his hands under the running water again, but there was no getting rid of it. The particles clung to his phalanges, as if they were branded into the bone there. A part of him, just like all the LV it had carried.

It sung in his marrow, itching inside his bones as if it wanted  _ out. _

_ ‘It’ll be there forever,’ _ Papyrus said, another astute observation Dust already knew. It would follow him everywhere he went, his namesake a weight he carried heavy on his back.

But, he would do it again, if the world conspired against him, if he was robbed of what meagre excuse of a good ending he’d fought bone and claw for. It was the least he could do for everyone, for Papyrus; give them an easier, painless way out instead of the human’s merciless knife.

His hands trembled, and he didn’t know if it was from the cold or from something else. He couldn’t feel it anymore. In fact, he couldn’t feel much of anything, save the prickle of eyes on him, judgemental and piercing down to his rotten SOUL.

Each time his hands moved, more dust fell from the dirtied cotton of his sleeves, the already faded blue of his hoodie turned an off-white.

Unthinking, he dunked his forearms under the stream, causing water to go flying all over the bathroom. It crawled up the length of his sleeves, turning them darker and heavier, but just like his hands, the dust clung to them, refusing to wash away no matter how hard he rubbed them together.

Papyrus laughed, his watery voice echoing in the enclosed space.  _ ‘Give it up, brother. It’s pointless.’ _

Dust desperately clawed at the sleeves, his phalanges leaving rips and tears in the soaked fabric. He didn’t regret what he had done. He didn’t.

It had been the right thing.

It had been better for Papyrus to die by his own hand, swift and easy, than to be betrayed by the human he’d still believed in.

His sins were many, but they had no right to weigh as much as they did. He gripped at his dirtied, wet sleeve, fingers bunching the fabric even as they wrung moisture out of it. They pulled, and the fabric gave way, ripping with a sound that echoed in Dust’s aural cavity, a blessing and a curse both.

The whitened strip of fabric fell into the sink, dropping down to the drain as he stared between it and his arm. It was blue, where the ripped edge only reached halfway down his forearm.

A choked laugh escaped him at the sight. He met Papyrus’ surprised look, if only for a moment, before he was tearing another strip off. The seam at his shoulder came loose and he pulled the rest of the sleeve off, dropping it into the sink to join the rest. The other one offered about as much resistance, coming off with a rip that he all but  _ reveled _ in. 

Papyrus scoffed, but Dust couldn’t stop looking at the stained pieces of fabric, distorted by the water level rising over them in the sink.

“Gone,” he told his brother, shutting the water off with a shaky hand before it had an opportunity to overflow.

_ ‘You are really stupid if you think tearing off one mark of what you’ve become will erase it.’ _

“I don’t think that,” Dust muttered, though he couldn’t keep the giddy grin off his face.

No, he didn’t think doing this would erase all of his LV, or what he’d done to get it, but he felt lighter, now that he wasn’t carrying around a physical remnant of it. When he looked down at his hands, they were shaking, and rubbed raw, but they were  _ clean. _

“But I think it’s a step in the right direction.”

Papyrus had nothing to say to that, and it was easy to ignore the way he rolled his eyes.

Even soaked and cold as he was, Dust felt  _ fine  _ for the first time in ages.


End file.
